JANUARY 2007 MAXIMUMPC 95
MAXIMUM
PC’
s
LEAN MACHINE!
Buy the components, then build the
ultimate budget gaming rig with our
expert guide.10 REASONS
YOU DON’T
NEED VISTA!
We’re not in a hurry to upgrade to
Vista, you shouldn’t be either!WEB BROWSER
BATTLE
Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera...
oh my! Which browser will win?
Come back next month to find out.IN
FOR NOVELTY
PURPOSES
ONLY
LETTERS POLICY: MAXIMUM PC invites your thoughts and comments. Send them to
[email protected]. Please include your full name, town, and telephone number, and limit
your letter to 300 words. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. Due to the vast amount of
e-mail we receive, we cannot personally respond to each letter.MORE ON THE VISTA ACTIVATION
QUAGMIRE
I have heard that Microsoft has relented on
the EULA language for Vista (“Microsoft’s
Licensing Madness,” December 2006). Please
keep this matter alive as my purchase deci-
sion will depend on this exact restriction. I, as
well as many others, will not buy an operating
system that will become worthless so quickly,
and I have no faith whatsoever in Microsoft’s
re-activation algorithm. My XP version just went
dead again after zero hardware changes since
the last re-activation; the only change was new
Nvidia drivers.
—Sam Chase
EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS:
Microsoft has indeed dropped the inane
one-transfer clause from the Vista license.
We’ve also completed preliminary testing on
the activation process for the final version of
Vista (release candidates and betas required
activation, but installs with valid keys were
never denied). We’ve reinstalled the final code
on the same hardware several times with the
same serial number, without having to call or
contact Microsoft’s activation hotline.
MAGNIFICENT SIX?
I was excited to read the roundup of gaming PCs
for under $2,500 in your December 2006 issue
[“The Magnificent Seven”]. I was especially
excited about the Overdrive PC you reviewed. But
when I went to the company’s website and built
the same machine, it cost $3,100! I don’t know
how you got it for $2,500. Whose mother did you
threaten to get that price?
— Jimmy Latteri
SENIOR EDITOR GORDON MAH UNG
RESPONDS: All of the system vendors in the
roundup were required to have their sys-
tems on sale as of November 1. Three of the
vendors were late on their sale dates, with
Overdrive being the latest. What caused the
holdup? Were they unwilling to sell at the
prices quoted to us for the reviews? We’re
not sure, but we suspect the culprit was
mostly bureaucracy. Once we reminded the
vendors of the terms of the roundup, they
immediately corrected their prices to reflect
the published price limit. We haven’t heard
from any other readers who were unable to
purchase a system at the quoted price, but
please let us know if you can’t.TONY, ARE YOU A CYLON?
A “cubit” is a measure of distance, not a form
of currency as you claimed in your midrange PC
review [“The Magnificent Seven,” December
2006]. As a Steely Dan fan, I recommend “pias-
tre” (or piaster), but there is also “dinar,” “escu-
do,” and my second-favorite “Oat Bin Hoard” as
obscure monetary references.
—TonySENIOR EDITOR GORDON “APOLLO” UNG
RESPONDS: Sorry, Tony, cubits have been
the official currency of the 12 colonies for
more than 3,000 yahrens now. Maybe if your
colony had decided to stick with the program
instead of cutting and running to Earth, you’d
know that.THE DOG’S NOSE KNOWS
This has little or nothing to do with computers,
but for the sake of accuracy I thought I’d men-
tion this.
In the article “Piracy Gone to the Dogs”
(QuickStart, December 2006), you suggested
(tongue in cheek, I’m sure) disguising bootleg
DVDs from the prying nose of police dogs by
masking their scent with air freshener. As a
retired civilian police employee, I am familiar
with canines and how they smell, er, detect
odors. Dogs can distinguish up to seven sepa-
rate odors at one time. For instance, you and I
smell beef stew. The dog smells beef, potatoes,
carrots, bay leaves, and so on. Drug dealers
have attempted to hide marijuana by pack-
ing it with pepper or some other spice, but it
doesn’t work. The pooch sniffs the car and says
to himself, “Hmmmmm. I smell pepper... and
marijuana!” He then trots back to the police car,
sits next to the door where the bad guy is, rolls
his eyes at him and utters a sarcastic, “Duh.”
The same thing could happen with the DVDs. “I
smell air freshener, pepper, sauerkraut extract,
old socks, a dead fish, and bootleg DVDs. Now
where’s my treat?”
—Andy BarberEDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS:
Thanks for the heads up, Andy!FEBRUARY
ISSUE
COMING
NEXT
MONTH